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Human Rights Watch
Lebanon Joins Mine Ban Treaty
(Beirut, May 27, 2026) – Lebanon’s recent accession to the Mine Ban Treaty amid an ongoing armed conflict underscores the treaty’s vital importance for saving lives and rebuilding communities, Human Rights Watch said today. The government’s decision should motivate other countries, particularly in the Middle East and North Africa, to support the global norm against antipersonnel mines.
“Lebanon’s adoption of the Mine Ban Treaty during unrelenting fighting and destruction at home and in the region is an important step toward safeguarding civilian lives, assisting mine victims, and restoring land to its communities,” said Verity Coyle, deputy crisis, conflict and arms director at Human Rights Watch. “States that haven’t signed on should urgently follow suit.”
Antipersonnel mines kill and wound people indiscriminately. They are typically placed by hand but can also be scattered by aircraft, rockets, artillery, and drones or dispersed from specialized vehicles. Uncleared landmines remain a danger until located and destroyed. Mined land can drive displacement of civilians, hinder the delivery of humanitarian aid, and prevent agricultural activities.
The Mine Ban Treaty, which entered into force in 1999, comprehensively prohibits the use of antipersonnel mines and requires countries to destroy their stockpiles, clear mined areas, and help victims.
Lebanon is heavily contaminated with antipersonnel landmines. Despite ongoing clearance efforts that remove thousands of mines every year, by the end of 2024 at least 15.79 square kilometers of land remained contaminated with landmines and an additional 4.67 square kilometers were contaminated with cluster munitions, which effectively act as landmines. In 2023, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) estimated that this contamination affects at least 200,000 people in Lebanon.
Between 2015 and 2024, mines or explosive remnants of war killed at least 167 people in Lebanon.
The Lebanese government has shown interest in the Mine Ban Treaty since the early 2000s but pointed to the security situation in the country as an impediment. In December 2009, Lebanon confirmed that it “has never produced or exported antipersonnel mines.”
In January 2026, Lebanon’s Council of Ministers issued a decree approving the country’s accession to the treaty. Lebanon deposited its instrument of accession to the treaty with the United Nations in New York City on May 1, becoming the 162nd country to join. The treaty will enter into force for Lebanon on November 1, 2026.
Lebanon’s accession comes at a critical time for the treaty as five European states—Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Finland, and Poland—withdrew from the treaty in 2025, and Ukraine has attempted to suspend its obligations, all citing security concerns as the primary reason for their decision.
Lebanon is now required to submit an initial transparency report to the UN and begin to implement the provisions of the Mine Ban Treaty in territory under its jurisdiction or control under all circumstances.
Other states should follow Lebanon’s example and join the treaty immediately. Countries in the Middle East and North Africa region that remain outside the Mine Ban Treaty include Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Israel, Libya, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and the United Arab Emirates.
“Lebanon’s joining the Mine Ban Treaty strengthens global opposition to these horrific weapons and should encourage other states to do so,” Coyle said. “The fact that Lebanon made this legal commitment in the midst of a crisis should remind other countries why international treaties protecting civilians are so critical.”
Human Rights Watch is a founding member of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL), chaired the US Campaign to Ban Landmines, and served as ban policy editor for Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor. The ICBL received the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize, together with its coordinator, Jody Williams, for its efforts to bring about the Mine Ban Treaty and for its contributions to new international diplomacy based on humanitarian imperatives.
Cubans, Many in the US for Decades, Deported to Mexico
(Washington, DC) – The Trump administration has deported thousands of Cubans, many of them older adults, to Mexico, denying them due process and leaving many stranded without access to basic services, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.
The 66-page report, “‘Casting Us Aside to Die:’ Cuban and Other Third-Country Nationals Deported from the US to Mexico,” documents US government abuses against Cubans and other third-country nationals deported to Mexico between January 2025 and March 2026. With no other recourse to obtain permanent residency in Mexico, many Cuban deportees, whose home government refuses to take them back, are trapped in a legal limbo. Since arriving in Mexico, they have received little if any government support, and many are without access to shelter, food, or health care.
May 27, 2026 “Casting Us Aside to Die”“The Trump administration is using Mexico as a dumping ground for people it cannot deport to their countries of origin, including many Cubans who have been in the United States for decades,” said Alcira Silva Hava, Leonard H. Sandler fellow in the refugee and migrant rights division at Human Rights Watch. “The Mexican government is not offering them any way to obtain durable legal status outside of the asylum system, leaving many in limbo with no shelter, no medication, and at the mercy of criminal organizations.”
Human Rights Watch interviewed 53 third-country nationals deported from the United States to Tapachula, Chiapas and Villahermosa, Tabasco, including 41 Cuban men. The majority of the men had lived in the United States, predominantly in Florida, for years or decades after fleeing Cuba because of political repression or lack of economic opportunities. Many had built businesses, owned homes, and left family members behind in the United States. Most are 60 or older and have chronic health conditions requiring ongoing medical treatment.
None of the people interviewed were given the opportunity to challenge their deportation to Mexico, violating their due process rights under both US and international law. US authorities deported them without documentation, money, or personal belongings. Although Mexican authorities have agreed to receive Cuban nationals, they have left them in unsafe conditions, without access to shelter or health care. With no clear path to legal status, many have little prospect of improving their circumstances. Some have been forced to live on the streets, including in parks or outside hospitals.
“They’re casting us aside to die,” said Harold A. (pseudonym), a 58-year-old Cuban national. “There’s no help. We can’t work because we don’t have papers. They don’t give us anything, nothing…. How are we supposed to eat, to pay rent?”
The deported individuals were sent to southern Mexico, where cities like Tapachula and Villahermosa have high levels of violence and paltry capacity to provide protection, housing, jobs, and access to public services. Most of those interviewed struggled to find nonexploitative work or health care. Older people faced the most severe consequences. Some were cut off from the medications they had taken for years.
Human Rights Watch found that between January 20, 2025, and March 9, 2026, US authorities deported more than 18,000 third-country nationals, of whom nearly 13,000—roughly 70 percent—were sent to Mexico under an undisclosed agreement between the two governments. Cubans accounted for the largest group, with 4,353 deported to Mexico over the same period.
Click to expand Image Graphic © 2026 Human Rights WatchOf these, 55 percent had a prior US criminal conviction, 16 percent had a pending charge but no conviction, and 26 percent had no criminal record at all. Only 16 percent had a violent or potentially violent offense as their most serious conviction. The mass targeting of long-term Cuban permanent residents and their deportation to Mexico was not a US practice prior to President Donald Trump’s second term.
Cuban and other third-country-national deportees were subjected to numerous abuses at the hands of the US government. In US immigration detention, many experienced overcrowding, extreme temperatures, inadequate food, poor access to medical care, and lack of access to information about their cases, as well as physical and verbal violence by guards. Until April 2026, Mexican law severely limited their movement to other Mexican states by requiring a valid identification for travel within the country, effectively preventing them from seeking better conditions or opportunities in other parts of the country.
Asylum is essentially the only legal pathway deportees have to permanent legal status in Mexico, but many who have been outside Cuba for decades may simply not have, or are unlikely to be able to demonstrate, a well-founded fear of persecution in the country.
Even for those who wish to make asylum claims, the process is arduous. The Mexican Refugee Assistance Agency’s under-resourced bureaucracy is slow and saddled with procedural requirements that make it very difficult for people to access asylum or similar protection.
The US government should comply with the procedural requirements of the Immigration and Nationality Act that give each person a meaningful opportunity to contest their country of removal. Transfers should occur only under transparent agreements, and all receiving states should guarantee full and fair asylum procedures and durable protection for those who qualify. To the extent US law allows it, the authorities should also weigh age, physical and mental health, disability, and family ties in the United States before enforcing removal orders to third countries.
The Mexican government should accept transfers only under transparent agreements that entail compliance with due process and international law, and should guarantee full and fair protection screenings, including access to asylum. Mexico has a particular responsibility to those who it accepted knowing that their countries of origin have refused to take them back.
France Acknowledges Need for Slavery Reparations
French President Emmanuel Macron addressed the need for reparations in connection with France’s role in the transatlantic slave trade on May 21.
Macron said that reparations for enslavement crimes should no longer be ignored. He also warned against “false promises,” emphasizing that the legacy of enslavement could never be fully repaired because it was “impossible.” Macron backed the symbolic repeal of the never-abolished “Code Noir,” which were royal decrees from the 17th and 18th century that governed enslavement in French colonies.
France was a top influential transatlantic slave-trading European nation.
Macron’s remarks, made during a 25th anniversary commemoration of France’s law recognizing enslavement and the transatlantic slave trade as crimes against humanity, constituted a notable rhetorical shift by the French government. But Macron stopped short of specifying the kind of reparations that he envisions and whether financial redress will be part of it.
Macron focused on initiatives related to memorialization, education, and research, while also supporting an international scientific research project launched by Ghana on the legacies of enslavement. These measures, while important, are not a substitute for a comprehensive reparatory framework with full reparations, including measures that address contemporary systemic inequalities and racism rooted in enslavement legacies.
Civil society groups, descendants of enslaved people, as well as African and Caribbean states—including France’s overseas departments—have repeatedly called on France and other former European colonial powers for reparatory measures that address the daily lives of communities, which continue to feel the impacts of colonial and enslavement legacies. International pressure for reparations is also growing. In March, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution introduced by Ghana, which affirmed the transatlantic slave trade as a “crime against humanity” and recognized reparations as a pathway to justice. France, together with other European Union member states, abstained from voting, a move that drew criticism, particularly from representatives of France’s overseas territories.
With reparations now placed on the political agenda, the French government should develop a national framework grounded in international human rights law and standards designed to provide full reparations for past and present harm linked to France’s colonial and enslavement legacies.
Vatican Urges Strict Regulation of Artificial Intelligence in War
Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical, “Magnifica Humanitas” (Magnificent Humanity), the Catholic Church’s authoritative pastoral letter released on May 25, emphasized the need for “safeguarding the human person in the time of artificial intelligence,” including the use of AI in warfare and the threat posed by killer robots.
Building on the church’s long-held position, Pope Leo wrote that “the decision to use lethal force cannot be delegated to opaque or automated processes, but must remain under effective, self-aware and responsible human control.”
The previous pope, Pope Francis, addressed in 2024 the existential threat posed by autonomous weapons systems, warning that “no machine should ever choose to take the life of a human being.”
Both pontiffs have argued that surrendering lethal decisions to algorithms degrades human dignity, and that it insulates politicians and military leaders from the moral weight of their actions. Christian, Buddhist, and Muslim groups joined a 2023 interfaith statement calling for “urgent united action against killer robots.”
The Stop Killer Robots campaign, which Human Rights Watch co-founded in 2013, has called for a treaty with prohibitions and regulations on autonomous weapons systems. And now Pope Leo has appealed for “responsibility [to] … be clearly defined at every stage: from those who design and develop these systems to those who use them and rely on them for concrete decisions” to ensure that “the development and use of AI in warfare [is] subject to the most rigorous ethical constraints, to guarantee respect for human dignity and the sanctity of life.”
In June, states will meet at the United Nations to discuss for the first time how to address the “opportunities and challenges” posed by use of AI by militaries. States will meet again in Geneva in November to consider whether to formally launch negotiations for a treaty regulating the use of autonomous weapons systems. To date, 130 states have expressed support for a legally binding instrument prohibiting or regulating such weapons.
Undecided states should take into account the Vatican, other countries, and civil society organizations that have all spoken out on the unchecked rise of digital technology creating a real possibility that algorithms will be entrusted with life-or-death decisions. They should take immediate steps to regulate this technology to ensure that it serves—and doesn’t destroy—humanity.
US: Medicaid Work Requirements Risk Coverage Loss for Millions of People
(Washington DC) – Federal regulators should act urgently to prevent millions of people with low incomes from losing Medicaid coverage under new work requirements, Human Rights Watch and Oxfam America said in a joint letter to the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) last week.The agencies face a June 1 deadline to issue guidance to states on how to implement these new rules, which risk undermining the right to health and worsening inequality, according to new research conducted by Human Rights Watch and Oxfam America.
The 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) will require most adults with low incomes and without dependents to document at least 80 hours per month of work, education, or related activities by the end of 2026 to maintain Medicaid coverage in the 40 states and the District of Columbia that expanded Medicaid coverage under the Affordable Care Act. The Urban Institute estimates that between 4.9 and 10.1 million people could lose Medicaid coverage by 2028 because of these new requirements.
“These work requirements address a problem that doesn’t exist since most Medicaid recipients are already working,” said Matt McConnell, economic justice and rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. “They won’t fix the budget. They just strip health care from millions of low-income people by making it harder for them to prove they qualify.”
Joint HRW-Oxfam Submission to HHS-CMSHuman Rights Watch and Oxfam America’s letter draws on a joint research in Georgia, which in 2023 expanded Medicaid coverage to adults without dependents but conditioned eligibility on meeting work requirements similar to those in the OBBBA. Available data and interviews with health care providers, policy experts, and people with experience navigating these work requirements show that poorly administered enrollment and verification systems, rigid reporting rules, and technical failures frequently cause eligible people to lose or be denied Medicaid coverage.
A 36-year-old woman in Atlanta had been working as a supermarket cashier receiving healthcare coverage through Medicaid, meeting work requirements, until the birth of her child in late 2025. “After I had the baby, my Medicaid and food stamps were turned off,” she said. “[They] said that I failed to report that I was working.” She has spent months trying to restore coverage while accumulating medical debt and struggling to afford food and rent. “It’s hectic,” she said. “You’re not able to reach anybody.”
The organizations also documented similar failures under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which provides food assistance and is also subject to expanded work requirements under the bill.
Medicaid is a means-tested public health insurance program for people with low or no incomes. It provides healthcare coverage for more than 68 million people in the US, including nearly 20 million adults covered through the Affordable Care Act’s expansion, who will be subject to these work requirements. The program is jointly funded by federal and state governments but is administered by the states under federal law, with HHS and CMS responsible for issuing and overseeing compliance with national regulations.
The OBBBA, which became law in July 2025, extended and deepened expensive tax cuts that overwhelmingly benefit the ultra-wealthy. The nonpartisan Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation found will that the top 0.1% of earners will receive an average tax cut of $311,000 in 2027, while the lowest-income households will see their taxes increase. It also radically reduced federal spending on public services and programs, including through more restrictive eligibility and reporting requirements. The Congressional Budget Office, a nonpartisan government research agency, found that these changes will reduce after-tax and transfer incomes for the bottom 20 percent of US households while benefiting the richest households the most.
According to KFF, a nonpartisan health policy research organization, more than 6 out of every 10 people on Medicaid are already working full or part time. About 3 out of 10 aren’t working because of caregiving responsibilities, disability or illness, or because they are attending school. Fewer than 1 in 10 are unemployed for another reason, but most of them are over age 65.
The large share of working adults on Medicaid reflects flaws in the US’ employer-based health insurance system. Many low-paying employers avoid providing health insurance to employees by considering them consultants or part-time workers.
“Work requirements are sold as sensible, pragmatic reforms, but the lived reality couldn’t be more different,” said Jackson Gandour, senior policy advisor for economic justice at Oxfam America. “In practice, evidence shows they can create unfair and effectively insurmountable barriers for people who need coverage and are making every effort to meet the requirements.”
Work requirements compound existing barriers to accessing public services and social protection programs that disproportionately affect people with low incomes, those in rural areas, people with disabilities, and people experiencing homelessness. Unreliable internet and phone access, unstable housing, limited in-person assistance, and error-prone online enrollment systems all contribute to the denial and disenrollment of eligible people.
At the same time, work requirements divert public funds away from care. The Georgia Budget & Policy Institute found that fewer than one out of every three dollars spent on the Georgia program during its first two years went to healthcare services, while nearly half went to error-prone administrative and technology systems needed to enforce eligibility.
“If you don’t understand something, or you’re trying to understand what they need, you can’t get a hold of anyone to ask,” said a 48-year-old woman in Atlanta, who said that her SNAP benefits were terminated for missing documentation, despite submitting verification of her hours volunteering in the community through the state’s online portal. Though she is eligible for Medicaid, she pays out of pocket for private insurance to avoid the headache, even though her premiums recently doubled. “What they fail to realize is that a lot of people working still need assistance,” she said.
Human Rights Watch and Oxfam America urged federal authorities to issue guidance for states that will help prevent work requirements from causing harmful and unnecessary Medicaid denials and terminations. This includes reducing documentation requirements, broadly interpreting exemptions, and recognizing a wide range of qualifying activities that reflect real labor conditions, including gig work, unpaid caregiving, and seasonal employment.
Under international human rights law, everyone has the right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health. Means-testing access to public health insurance already contributes to the more than 26 million uninsured people in the United States, who may incur potentially devastating medical costs and must often forgo or ration care. Further conditioning coverage though complex work reporting requirements is likely to exclude millions more, undermining their rights to health, food, and social security, while deepening inequality.
“Much of the harm these work requirements will cause is predictable, but also preventable,” McConnell said. “Federal regulators should ensure that states implement these rules in a way that protects people’s rights, rather than stripping them of health care through bureaucratic barriers.”
Ukraine: Russia Illegally Seizing Property in Occupied Areas
(Kyiv, May 26, 2026) – Russian authorities are unlawfully seizing civilian property belonging to Ukrainians in occupied areas, Human Rights Watch said today. International law prohibits occupying powers from confiscating or appropriating private property unless strictly required by military necessity.
Occupation authorities have introduced a process allowing them to designate private property as “ownerless” and transfer it to municipal ownership, while pressuring Ukrainian owners to obtain Russian citizenship if they wish to confirm ownership or contest seizures. For millions of displaced Ukrainians, and for those still residing in territories occupied since 2022 who refuse to comply with Russian laws, the seizure of property effectively strips them of shelter, income, or the means to sustain their lives. Along with Russian-imposed administrative and travel barriers, these measures undermine refugees’ and internally displaced people’s ability to return home in safety and dignity.
“Millions of Ukrainians have been forced to flee their homes in areas under Russian occupation due to the ongoing war,” said Yulia Gorbunova, Associate Ukraine Director at Human Rights Watch. “Now they also face the unlawful seizure of their property as Russia blatantly disregards its obligations as an occupying power.”
Between January and November 2025, Human Rights Watch interviewed 25 Ukrainian civilians who own property in or recently traveled from the occupied areas, as well as Ukrainian officials, human rights activists, and lawyers. Most interviews were conducted in person in Ukraine, and some by phone. Some people interviewed requested anonymity. Human Rights Watch also reviewed more than 300 judgments issued between March 2024 and January 2026 by courts established by Russian authorities in occupied areas of the Donetska and Luhanska regions.
Following its full-scale invasion in February 2022, Russian authorities claimed to annex the Donetska, Luhanska, Khersonska, and Zaporizka regions, a move not recognized as lawful under international law. Russian authorities installed their own administrative structures and legal systems in occupied areas and enacted policies facilitating the seizure of private property, which also has no legitimacy under international law.
Through an unlawful and opaque administrative process, occupation authorities designate private property that is not reregistered under Russian law as “ownerless,” after which courts transfer it to municipal ownership.
Ukrainian property owners are required to obtain Russian citizenship to participate in this process. They need to appear in person to comply with, or to challenge, the designation or transfer. The law allows the presence of a legal representative, but only if they hold a Russian passport and are acting with a power of attorney issued by a Russian passport holder. Displaced civilians face significant security, logistical, and financial barriers that make travel to occupied areas nearly impossible.
Russian federal legislation required owners with Ukraine-issued property documents to reregister their property under Russian law by January 2028. However, in late 2025, authorities moved that deadline up to July 2026, claiming residents had already had “more than enough time” to reregister their property.
Although Russian law does not explicitly exclude Ukrainian passport holders from reregistering property, Human Rights Watch found that in practice officials routinely refuse to accept Ukrainian passports. None of the Ukrainian passport holders interviewed were able to register property under Russian rules, either in person or through a legal representative. Once property is designated as “ownerless,” only Russian passport holders can challenge the designation.
Once authorities identify a property as showing “signs of being ownerless”—with lack of reregistration a key factor—they post notices at apartment building entrances or on local administration websites that may be inaccessible from Ukrainian-controlled territory due to internet restrictions imposed by Ukrainian authorities. The owner then has 30 days to appear before occupation authorities to confirm ownership.
The designation of “ownerless” often proceeds even when authorities are aware of the owner’s identity.
“It’s like they announce them ownerless while still admitting they have owners,” said a displaced resident of Mariupol. “The key requirement [of the Russian authorities] is that the person be present [to register the apartment in Russia’s registry] and have a Russian passport. For me, this is completely unacceptable.”
Human Rights Watch documented 16 such cases based on first-hand accounts; in 2, the authorities seized property without any notice to the owners.
Under current restrictions, Ukrainian passport holders seeking to enter occupied territories must travel through Russia, where they face intrusive screening by the Federal Security Service (FSB) border guards, including interrogations and phone inspections. According to Ukraine’s civil society group East SOS, only one out of every four people undergoing this “filtration” process is allowed to proceed. These restrictions make compliance impossible for many displaced Ukrainians.
“On the one hand, authorities say owners must appear within 30 days to prove ownership,” said a 75-year-old displaced resident from Sievierodonetsk. “But no one gets through the filtration process.”
In August 2025, Russian authorities reported that 4.6 million properties had been registered in the four occupied regions since September 2024, identifying 550,000 properties with no documentation, placing them at risk of being deemed “ownerless.”
According to the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, occupation authorities had issued notices identifying more than 38,000 properties as “potentially ‘abandoned’” by November 2025. The UN also reported that occupation authorities in the Donetska and Luhanska regions had already formally designated 5,557 properties “abandoned.” Once occupation authorities designate private property “ownerless,” they petition courts to formally transfer it to municipal ownership.
Human Rights Watch identified approximately 8,000 court cases involving property seizures filed between March 2024 and January 2026 in 25 courts in occupied areas. The total is most likely higher, as not all courts publish decisions or maintain accessible websites. Court records show consistent disregard of evidence of ownership and efforts by owners to assert their rights.
Occupation authorities in Mariupol have begun transferring confiscated apartments to new residents. Russian authorities have promoted the relocation of Russian citizens to Mariupol through media campaigns and low-interest mortgages.
As an occupying power, Russia is prohibited by international law, including the Fourth Geneva Convention, from transferring its own civilian population into the territory it occupies. Such transfers constitute a war crime, prosecutable under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC). Russia is also bound to respect private property and is prohibited from seizing it except where strictly required by military necessity. It must also respect property rights, ensure due process, and avoid discrimination under international human rights law.
Russian authorities should end unlawful property seizures in occupied areas of Ukraine. They should also end policies that alter the demographics of occupied areas, including coercive pressure to obtain Russian citizenship and nationality-based discrimination, and lift restrictions preventing Ukrainians from traveling to occupied territories.
International accountability efforts should place greater emphasis on Russia’s occupation-related abuses. The European Union and the Council of Europe should ensure that newly established mechanisms, such as the Register of Damage for Ukraine and the Claims Commission, address these violations and provide reparations to victims.
“Russia’s laws and policies in occupied areas seek to mask the unlawful seizure of civilian property behind a veneer of legality, both a violation of international law and an assault on the livelihoods of millions of Ukrainians,” Gorbunova said. “Russian authorities should immediately cease these illegal practices.
Russia’s Legal Framework for Designating a Property Ownerless
Article 225 of Russia’s Civil Code, provides that property may be deemed “ownerless” if it has no owner, the owner is unknown, or the owner has renounced ownership.
On October 4, 2022, Russian authorities adopted legislation purporting to annex Russia-occupied Ukrainian territories in Donetska, Luhanska, Khersonska, and Zaporizka regions. This legislation, which aimed to forcibly integrate the territories into Russia’s economic, financial, legal, and administrative systems, authorized occupying authorities to designate private property as “ownerless.”
Specific procedures and criteria for such designations are regulated by the local authorities in four occupied regions.
Legislative amendments adopted on December 15, 2025, incorporated the property seizure processes, previously regulated at the regional level, into federal law. The amendments also formalized the requirement for property owners in occupied areas holding Ukraine-issued documents to reregister their property in Russia’s Unified State Register of Real Estate by July 1, 2026.
The amendments stipulate that residential property—private houses, apartments or rooms—designated as ownerless shall be recognized as the property of the respective regions or their municipalities. Such property may then be allocated to Russian passport holders who lost housing because of the conflict, who are registered as needing housing, whose own property has been seized as “ownerless,” or who work for local authorities or their subordinate institutions, including in education and health.
Local-Level Implementation of the Process
Human Rights Watch documented 16 cases, based on first-hand interviews, in which occupation authorities designated properties whose owners are Ukrainian passport holders “ownerless.” In two of these cases, authorities seized the properties without providing owners with any meaningful opportunity to challenge the decision.
Under regional legislation enacted by occupation authorities in the occupied areas of the four regions, any individual or legal entity can notify local authorities that they believe a property is ownerless. Authorities then verify the property’s status based on criteria, including:
Non-payment of utilities for more than a year; Absence of ownership registration in Russia’s Unified State Register of Real Estate; orNon-use of property deemed to pose a safety risk to the building or its residents.Within 10 days of receiving notification, local authorities are required to publish information about the property on their official websites and post notices in accessible locations, including at the entrances to residential buildings, calling on the owner to appear in person within 30 days to confirm ownership.
Occupation authorities establish special commissions to conduct on-site inspections and produce reports on the property’s condition. If officials lack access to the premises and claim safety concerns, they may enter forcibly in the presence of police officers. They document the inspections with written reports, photographs, and videos. Human Rights Watch documented five cases in which authorities designated properties “ownerless” though they had identifiable owners or tenants.
If no owner appears within the prescribed period, and registry and utility providers confirm that the property is not registered or that utility contracts have not been renewed, a special body composed of representatives of local authorities may designate the property “ownerless” and assume its management.
Three months later, local authorities can petition a court to formally transfer ownership. Owners seeking to contest the “ownerless” status during that period must appear in person and present a Russian passport.
The Russian imposed laws provide no effective mechanism for displaced Ukrainians to confirm their ownership other than to be physically present. The law allows the presence of a legal representative, but only if they hold a Russian passport and are acting with a power of attorney issued by a Russian passport holder. Authorities refuse to accept powers of attorney issued by Ukrainian passport holders.
A man and his then-wife owned a hotel about 900 meters from the Sea of Azov in a village in the Khersonska region. After they left in early 2022, a local manager remained responsible for the property. In March 2025, residents from the city of Nova Kakhovka moved into the property without the owners’ consent, reportedly with the approval of the head of the village’s occupation administration. By September 2025, individuals allegedly linked to local occupation authorities forced the manager to vacate the premises without presenting any legal documentation.
The man later learned that, in May 2025, the Khersonska regional occupation administration had designated the property “ownerless” following a notice published on its website. No notice was posted at the entrance. The owners, both Ukrainian citizens, are unable to travel to the occupied territory to challenge the decision. The man said he had heard that the property ownership was transferred because local occupation authorities “want to move someone else in there.” The couple hired a lawyer to contest the seizure.
A woman originally from Mariupol, who left the city in 2022 due to hostilities and now lives in Ukraine government-controlled territory said she had repeatedly seen her property listed as ownerless since early 2025, including in Telegram channels used by Mariupol residents. In December 2025, occupation authorities officially designated her apartment, along with 341 other properties in the city, as “ownerless.”
Her building, including her apartment, had been heavily damaged during attacks on Mariupol in the early months of Russia’s full-scale invasion. She said she maintained regular contact with neighbors who remained in Mariupol and with the repair brigade that carried out initial renovation work on the building.
She said that one notice described it as “ownerless property whose owners have left Mariupol.” “It’s like they announce them ownerless while still admitting they have owners,” she said.
A 63-year-old pensioner from Avdiivka in occupied Donetska region, said that an apartment belonging to her friend’s son was designated as “ownerless” and reassigned to other residents while both the owner and his mother were living in areas controlled by the Ukrainian government. Later, they told her that they saw photographs on an Avdiivka Telegram channel showing local authorities issuing occupancy documents to new residents. “[The occupation authorities] saw that almost the entire building was empty and decided to populate it with new residents to show that everything was fine,” she said.
Court Practice in Property Seizure Cases
Russian authorities began establishing courts in the occupied territories in April 2023. At the time of writing, websites for 25 courts are operational, including 23 district courts and 2 regional courts in the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic.
Human Rights Watch identified 8,116 publicly available court cases involving property seizures under special proceedings before these courts on the websites, including 2,113 decisions; judgments in the remaining cases had not been published at time of writing. Researchers identified these cases on court websites. Other courts in the occupied territories either did not have functioning websites or have not published relevant records.
Researchers reviewed at least 300 decisions, which indicated that similar procedures for verifying property ownership are being applied across several municipalities in these regions.
The decisions suggest that the process from identifying a property as potentially ownerless to transferring ownership can take about a year. In one example from the city of Yenakiieve in Donetsk region:
May 31, 2024: authorities posted an online notice identifying a property as potentially ownerless.December 2024 and January 2025: authorities collected information from registries and utility providers.February 7, 2025: the property was formally registered as ownerless. August 5, 2025: a court transferred the property to municipal ownership.September 8, 2025: the decision entered into force.In typical cases, judges rely on confirmation that the property is not registered, information from utilities, and inspection reports.
In most cases, courts specifically cited the absence of registration as sufficient legal grounds to confirm the “ownerless” designation and transfer ownership.
Human Rights Watch reviewed only one case in which a judge assessed whether the property posed a safety risk, finding that the absence of heating, due to renovation work left unfinished since 2013, created a risk for neighbors.
In most cases, courts made the “ownerless” determination even though the property owners were clearly identified. In one case, the evidence included technical documentation, ownership histories, and ownership certificates naming the owners.
In some cases, utility providers reported that bills had been paid; in others, relatives or tenants were living in the property or managing it on the owner’s behalf. However, if the property was not registered in Russia’s registry, judges still ruled that the “ownerless” criteria were met.
In one case from October 2025, a Russia-installed Primorsk District Court in Mariupol ruled to transfer an apartment to occupation authorities despite evidence presented in court that the owner—a Ukrainian citizen—was too ill to travel and was actively seeking the required permission to register her property. The judge disregarded evidence that the owner was identifiable, had no utility debts, and had a relative living in the apartment. Instead, the court ruled that the absence of Russian registration and updated utility contracts constituted sufficient grounds to seize the property.
In another case before the Pershotravnevyi District Court in the occupied Donetska region in October 2025, a Ukrainian homeowner who had left her house in a village in Mangush allowed others to live there beginning in May 2022. Utility contracts remained in the owner’s name, with no outstanding utility debts. Authorities were able to identify the owner through archival records. Despite this, the judge transferred ownership to municipal authorities, citing the owner’s failure to appear in person and the absence of registration.
In some analyzed cases, inspection reports relied only on neighbors’ statements or superficial observations, such as a closed apartment door. In some cases, courts also relied on photographs submitted by local administrations showing “unkempt grass” or “overgrown vegetation.” In one case, the court cited an inspection report stating that the property “shows signs of being abandoned,” referring to photographs of the yard with “overgrown grass and bushes.” In another, the court relied on a commission’s visual inspection, which concluded that no one had been living in the apartment for a long time, noting closed doors and plastic windows.
In only a few cases did courts terminate proceedings after identifying the property owner or recognizing a legitimate ownership claim to the property, for example, when heirs were in the process of establishing inheritance rights.
Ukrainian authorities do not recognize decisions or documents issued by occupation authorities and courts, viewing them as invalid and without legal effect. Tetiana Gorodenska, head of the Division for the Rights of Citizens in Temporarily Occupied Territories at the Ukrainian Ombudsperson’s Office, said that “Ukraine does not recognize nationalization or any change in property ownership in occupied territories.”
Discriminatory Barriers to Property Reregistration for Ukrainian Passport Holders
To register property, owners or their representatives are required to submit original Ukrainian ownership documents in person at a Multifunction Service Center, all-in-one government services centers located either in occupied territories or in Russia.
Although the law does not explicitly require applicants to hold a Russian passport, Human Rights Watch found that officials treat Russian citizenship as a de facto prerequisite. Every person interviewed said that the authorities refused to allow Ukrainian passport holders to register property or appoint legal representatives to act on their behalf. In effect, this means forcing them to choose between obtaining Russian citizenship and risking the loss of their property.
In one documented case, a 74-year-old woman who fled Mariupol in 2022, traveled from Germany to Russia in 2024 specifically to register her apartment. Officials at the service center refused to accept her Ukrainian passport, stating that property registration was available only to Russian citizens. She said she ultimately obtained a Russian passport solely to protect her home.
“Unfriendly Foreign States” Designations
In 2024, Russian authorities further restricted the ability of Ukrainian citizens to confirm their property rights with new measures targeting citizens of so-called unfriendly foreign states, including Ukraine. Under these restrictions, Ukrainian passport holders must obtain special administrative permission from local occupation authorities before they can even apply to register property.
Human Rights Watch reviewed more than a dozen court rulings in which judges in occupied territories cited owners’ Ukrainian citizenship as that of an “unfriendly state” and said that leaving occupied territory was evidence that they had “withdrawn from the ownership and use of their property,” even when ownership and identity had been confirmed.
In several documented cases, courts disregarded clear statements by property owners expressing their intention to comply with Russian regulations.
In one case before the Telmanovskiy District Court in the occupied Donetska region in October 2025, a Ukrainian homeowner submitted an email statement that she was unable to travel but clearly expressing her intention to register the property before the then-applicable 2028 deadline. The judge dismissed her claim, stating that the designation of her property as “ownerless” could be halted only if the owner appeared in person and noting that she was a citizen of an “unfriendly” state residing outside Russia. The judge then ruled to transfer ownership of the house to municipal authorities.
Amendments to the “unfriendly” foreign states’ legislation, introduced on December 29, 2025, prohibit recognizing powers of attorney issued by Ukrainian passport holders for these real estate transactions without special permission from local authorities. In these cases, the power of attorney should be issued exclusively by a notary practicing within the Russia-occupied territories.
Russian officials appeared to refuse to recognize the authority of legal representatives acting on behalf of Ukrainian passport holders even before these amendments entered into force. In May 2025, a 58-year-old businesswoman from occupied Berdiansk, described the case of an acquaintance who attempted to sell her home through a legal representative. The owner, a Ukrainian citizen, obtained a power of attorney at a Russian consulate in Moldova authorizing a relative with a Russian passport to manage the sale of her house in Berdiansk. When the relative presented the consular documents, officials in Moscow refused to recognize them, stating that powers of attorney issued by Ukrainian passport holders were invalid. The woman said officials made clear that both the owner’s personal presence and Russian citizenship were required for any property transaction.
Restrictions for Ukrainians Traveling to Occupied Territories
Since October 2023, restrictions imposed by Russian authorities require Ukrainian passport holders seeking to enter occupied territories to first travel to Russia, typically through Sheremetyevo Airport, before continuing by bus to occupied areas. Many Ukrainians reach Moscow via Minsk Airport in Belarus.
At the Russian border, Ukrainians are subjected to an invasive security screening process known as “filtration” and are expected to express loyalty to the Russian state. According to the Ukrainian civil society group East SOS, border guards from Russia’s FSB interrogate travelers about their views on Russia’s full-scale invasion and their potential ties to Ukrainian government or security institutions and conduct intrusive inspections of their mobile phones and social media accounts.
Russian authorities reported that between October 2023 and April 2025, 30,000 Ukrainians were denied entry and issued entry bans ranging from 20 to 50 years. These bans are reportedly based on pro-Ukrainian social media activity, including liking posts featuring the Ukrainian military or expressing criticism of Russia’s war or policy. Russian courts have reportedly rejected all appeals lodged against these entry bans.
At the same time, men ages 23 to 60 are barred from leaving Ukraine under the martial law regime, further limiting the ability of property owners to travel to occupied territories.
People interviewed described 37 instances in which Ukrainians were denied entry while attempting to travel to manage their property, and only 3 cases in which individuals were allowed to proceed. Several other people said they feared they could not endure the lengthy and difficult journey, which can take more than a week and involve long-distance bus travel, or believed they would ultimately be denied entry. At least five people, including older people, people with disabilities, and those who had publicly opposed Russia’s invasion, said they considered the trip impossible.
A 51-year-old journalist from Mariupol who owns an apartment in the city said she decided against attempting the journey because she believed her public pro-Ukrainian views would lead to a denial of entry. She said that, to her knowledge, only two or three people from a bus with about 100 passengers are typically allowed to proceed through the “filtration” process.
She described a case in 2024 in which an acquaintance spent a week traveling to reach Sheremetyevo Airport but was then denied entry after officials claimed that a contact in her phone belonged to a Ukrainian military commander. The contact was, in fact, a colleague from a groceries warehouse.
A 66-year-old pensioner said she would like to return to Mariupol to inspect her apartment but believed she would be denied entry because her son had served in the Ukrainian armed forces and had been a prisoner of war before being released in a prisoner exchange in December 2024.
Logistical and financial barriers also prevent owners from contesting the seizure of their property. A woman, who now lives in Kyiv and owns an apartment in central Mariupol that she found listed as “ownerless” on a Mariupol administration website, said she could not travel due to health problems and lack of financial means.
Multiple people interviewed said the trip would be prohibitively expensive, costing approximately 500 euros each way, with no guarantee of entry. The trip typically includes several days of waiting for the “filtration” procedures at the airport.
The 63-year-old pensioner from Avdiivka said she knew at least six people, all around age 60, who were denied entry in Russia while attempting to travel to occupied territories to check on their property. She said they were not questioned but simply informed that they were barred from entry.
A 57-year-old woman from Sievierodonetsk in occupied areas of Luhanska region, similarly, said she knew of eight families who attempted to travel through Sheremetyevo Airport in 2024 to confirm ownership of their property but were denied entry, including one family with a child with a disability.
International Legal Framework
Under international law, Russia is an occupying power in areas of Ukraine over which it exercises effective control, including Crimea and parts of the Donetska, Luhanska, Zaporizska, and Khersonska regions and is bound by the law of occupation found primarily in the Hague Regulations of 1907, the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 (GC IV), the 1977 Additional Protocol I, and customary international law.
Under that law an occupying power is prohibited from confiscating private property unless destruction or seizure is “absolutely necessary” for military operations (Hague, art. 46; GC IV, art. 53) and from transferring its own civilian population into the territory it occupies (GC IV, art. 49). The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (art. 8(2)(b)(viii)) defines “the transfer, directly or indirectly, by the Occupying Power of parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies” as a war crime.
As an occupying power, Russia is required to respect existing laws and institutions of the occupied territory to the fullest extent possible and to protect the civilian population in those areas. Russia is also responsible for violations of international human rights law in territories under its effective control, including violations that arise from their arbitrary denial of Ukrainians’ right to use, access or enjoy their homes and property, and from discriminatory treatment of Ukrainian civilians.
The EU’s China Policy Should Center Human Rights
As European Union commissioners prepare for their April 29 security college meeting on China’s influence on EU security, they should place human rights concerns at the center of those discussions. The Chinese government’s intensifying repression at home and increasingly coercive conduct abroad pose serious risks not only for people’s rights, but also for Europe’s long-term security and economic resilience.
Since Xi Jinping came to power in 2013, the Chinese government has dramatically tightened ideological control, crushed independent civil society, and subjected ethnic and religious minorities to mass abuses including state-imposed forced labor. Beijing has also expanded transnational repression, adopted abusive laws with extraterritorial reach, and exported surveillance technologies: extending privacy, expression, and other rights violations beyond its borders.
China’s support of Russia’s war against Ukraine underscores the security consequences of ignoring rights abuses. Human Rights Watch reported in June 2025 that Chinese‑made commercial drones were being used by Russian forces to deliberately target civilians, highlighting how China’s industrial and technological production can fuel grave violations abroad. Human rights are also integral to Europe’s economic security. China’s “low‑rights” political economy—including a ban on independent unions, a discriminatory household registration system that limits access to public services for a third of its workforce, local governments’ forcible seizure of rural land, and greenlighting massive infrastructure projects without public consultation or effective legal constraints—have all fed into decades of artificially cheap exports. These practices have driven a global race to the bottom in labor rights and contributed to localized job losses in Europe.
The EU has begun to act—including through its forced labor regulation and corporate sustainability due diligence rules—but these watered-down measures are insufficient. EU institutions should go further by embedding human rights into economic policies and foreign policy, pressing China to fulfill its international labor commitments and expanding targeted sanctions against Chinese officials and companies responsible for serious abuses.
The EU’s fragmented approach has failed to counter China’s abusive practices. Only a coordinated EU strategy that integrates human rights across its foreign and economic policies can reduce Europe’s vulnerability to Beijing’s retaliation and wider security threats.
Sudan: Colombians Linked to Atrocities Trained in UAE Bases
(Beirut) – Colombian private military contractors, apparently hired by a United Arab Emirates (UAE)-based company, transited through UAE military bases before being deployed to Sudan to support the abusive Rapid Support Forces (RSF), Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. This is further evidence indicating that the UAE is assisting or otherwise substantially contributing to the Rapid Support Forces’ capacity to commit war crimes.
The 83-page report, “From Bogotá to El Fasher: UAE’s Role in the Deployment of Colombian Fighters and Other Backing to the Rapid Support Forces in Sudan,” presents evidence showing that, since 2024, the Abu Dhabi-based security company, Global Security Services Group (GSSG) hired hundreds of Colombian private military contractors who deployed to Sudan to fight alongside the RSF, which is battling the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF). Human Rights Watch found evidence that private military contractors were in El Fasher, North Darfur’s capital, in October 2025, when the RSF took over the city and committed widespread killings and rape. The UN International Fact-Finding Mission on Sudan has said that these events bore “the hallmarks of genocide.”
May 25, 2026 From Bogotá to El Fasher“The recruitment of Colombian private military contractors adds to a growing body of evidence that the UAE provides military support to the Rapid Support Forces, which have repeatedly carried out heinous atrocities in Sudan,” said Mausi Segun, executive director of the Africa Division at Human Rights Watch. “Governments should publicly demand that the UAE stop supplying weapons, equipment, personnel, and other military support to the Rapid Support Forces.”
Human Rights Watch interviewed two Colombian private military contractors who deployed to Sudan, one former employee of GSSG, eight El Fasher residents, and seven other sources, including former Colombian military officers, reviewed corporate records and official documents, and verified and geolocated photographs and videos posted online, including by the contractors themselves. Some showed contractors fighting alongside the RSF in Sudan and training in UAE military facilities.
The recruitment effort was ostensibly led by private entities, but Human Rights Watch found that the recruits transited through a UAE military base in Ghiyathi and an apparent military facility in Al Wathba, both in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi.
One contractor said that when he arrived in the UAE, he skipped immigration controls,“They didn’t stamp our passports.” He said that with other contractors, he was immediately transferred to the Ghiyathi base, where he received training by Emirati nationals. Human Rights Watch also identified four other contractors who, verified photos and videos show, made stopovers in the UAE before their deployment to Sudan. The first public evidence of the Colombians’ presence in Sudan came through videos posted on social media in November 2024, 19 months into the conflict. The Joint Forces of the Armed Movements, a coalition of armed groups allied with the Sudanese Armed Forces, which filmed the videos, had intercepted a convoy of Colombians who had entered Sudan from Libya.
The Colombians were found to have Bulgarian-made 81mm shells, which the French broadcaster France 24 reported were diverted from UAE armed forces stocks. These were one of three types of military equipment that ended up in the hands of the RSF in violation of their end-user agreements, based on research by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and France 24.
Human Rights Watch verified and geolocated videos that show foreign private military contractors, apparently Colombian, fighting in El Fasher during the RSF’s capture of the city in fall of 2025. The city’s residents experienced widespread abuses, including killings, rape, starvation, and targeting of people with disabilities. Six witnesses said they saw “white” foreign fighters at the site of mass RSF killings wearing the same protective equipment as seen in these videos: helmets, body armor, and kneepads.
Geolocated videos showing Spanish speaking military contractors in El Fasher, SudanApologies, if you see this message instead of an interactive map, then your browser does not support WebGL - a technology used by this mapping tool. Try loading this page in a supported browser like Chrome or contact webteam@hrw.org Geolocated Videos Showing Spanish Speaking Military Contractors in El Fasher, SudanGraphics © 2026 Human Rights Watch.
One Colombian contractor said he trained RSF recruits at camps around Nyala—used by the RSF as its main base in South Darfur—around April 2025, and that many recruits were “young children.” The Colombian news outlet La Silla Vacía also reported that some contractors had trained RSF child soldiers.
International law prohibits the recruitment or use of children in armed conflict, which is a war crime when children are under 15. The UN secretary-general verified 16 cases of child recruitment by the RSF in 2024 and included the armed group in the UN “list of shame” for grave violations against children in conflict.
Global Security Services Group was founded in 2016 by Ahmed Mohammed al-Humairi, secretary general of the UAE’s presidential court, according to a 2025 report by The Sentry, an investigative nongovernmental organization. Al-Humairi reports to UAE Vice President Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the brother of President Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan and chairman of the presidential court. In 2017, al-Humairi transferred his shares in GSSG to Mohamed Hamdan al-Zaabi, a longtime business partner, The Sentry reported.
GSSG boasts of being “the first private security company in the United Arab Emirates to be awarded an armed security license.” Until recently, it also advertised having key Emirati ministries as its clients and of being “the only armed private security services provider for the UAE government.” A former employee said that senior members of the ruling family were likely among the company’s clients, a claim backed up by a cache of leaked emails examined by Human Rights Watch. Al-Zaabi continues to be in business with al-Humairi.
The UAE has steadfastly denied that it provides military support to the RSF, claiming that the assistance provided is humanitarian. However, Emirati state authorities should and would be fully aware of activities taking place on Emirati territory, and specifically on government property and military bases. The UAE is a highly centralized authoritarian state.
Under UAE law, private security companies are required to coordinate their activities with UAE authorities and ensure that their activities are not in conflict with other security measures.
Human Rights Watch wrote to GSSG, the UAE authorities, and others implicated in the apparent recruitment and deployment of private military contractors or other military support to the RSF with summaries of its findings but did not receive a response.
The UN Security Council should ask its Panel of Experts on the Sudan to investigate GSSG, including al-Zaabi, for their apparent role supporting the RSF in violation of the 2004 UN Security Council arms embargo on Darfur. The council should also ask the Panel to investigate other actors, including private companies that might be aiding the RSF, and impose sanctions on individuals and entities providing such support.
Governments, as well as the European Union and African Union, should also investigate GSSG and al-Zaabi, with a view to adopting targeted sanctions. States should suspend all military cooperation with, and arms sales to the UAE. The EU and other states should use the leverage provided by bilateral negotiations with the UAE to press its authorities to end support for the RSF.
“Civilian victims are paying the cost of the lack of will to call out UAE’s support to the RSF,” Segun said. “Other countries need to stop accepting the UAE’s blanket denials of support to the RSF which fly in the face of the facts, and should put an end to its impunity for war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
Sudan: Colombians Linked to Atrocities Trained in UAE Bases
(Beirut) – Colombian private military contractors, apparently hired by a United Arab Emirates (UAE)-based company, transited through UAE military bases before being deployed to Sudan to support the abusive Rapid Support Forces (RSF), Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. This is further evidence indicating that the UAE is assisting or otherwise substantially contributing to the Rapid Support Forces’ capacity to commit war crimes.
The 83-page report, “From Bogotá to El Fasher: UAE’s Role in the Deployment of Colombian Fighters and Other Backing to the Rapid Support Forces in Sudan,” presents evidence showing that, since 2024, the Abu Dhabi-based security company, Global Security Services Group (GSSG) hired hundreds of Colombian private military contractors who deployed to Sudan to fight alongside the RSF, which is battling the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF). Human Rights Watch found evidence that private military contractors were in El Fasher, North Darfur’s capital, in October 2025, when the RSF took over the city and committed widespread killings and rape. The UN International Fact-Finding Mission on Sudan has said that these events bore “the hallmarks of genocide.”
May 25, 2026 From Bogotá to El Fasher“The recruitment of Colombian private military contractors adds to a growing body of evidence that the UAE provides military support to the Rapid Support Forces, which have repeatedly carried out heinous atrocities in Sudan,” said Mausi Segun, executive director of the Africa Division at Human Rights Watch. “Governments should publicly demand that the UAE stop supplying weapons, equipment, personnel, and other military support to the Rapid Support Forces.”
Human Rights Watch interviewed two Colombian private military contractors who deployed to Sudan, one former employee of GSSG, eight El Fasher residents, and seven other sources, including former Colombian military officers, reviewed corporate records and official documents, and verified and geolocated photographs and videos posted online, including by the contractors themselves. Some showed contractors fighting alongside the RSF in Sudan and training in UAE military facilities.
The recruitment effort was ostensibly led by private entities, but Human Rights Watch found that the recruits transited through a UAE military base in Ghiyathi and an apparent military facility in Al Wathba, both in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi.
One contractor said that when he arrived in the UAE, he skipped immigration controls,“They didn’t stamp our passports.” He said that with other contractors, he was immediately transferred to the Ghiyathi base, where he received training by Emirati nationals. Human Rights Watch also identified four other contractors who, verified photos and videos show, made stopovers in the UAE before their deployment to Sudan. The first public evidence of the Colombians’ presence in Sudan came through videos posted on social media in November 2024, 19 months into the conflict. The Joint Forces of the Armed Movements, a coalition of armed groups allied with the Sudanese Armed Forces, which filmed the videos, had intercepted a convoy of Colombians who had entered Sudan from Libya.
The Colombians were found to have Bulgarian-made 81mm shells, which the French broadcaster France 24 reported were diverted from UAE armed forces stocks. These were one of three types of military equipment that ended up in the hands of the RSF in violation of their end-user agreements, based on research by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and France 24.
Human Rights Watch verified and geolocated videos that show foreign private military contractors, apparently Colombian, fighting in El Fasher during the RSF’s capture of the city in fall of 2025. The city’s residents experienced widespread abuses, including killings, rape, starvation, and targeting of people with disabilities. Six witnesses said they saw “white” foreign fighters at the site of mass RSF killings wearing the same protective equipment as seen in these videos: helmets, body armor, and kneepads.
Geolocated videos showing Spanish speaking military contractors in El Fasher, SudanApologies, if you see this message instead of an interactive map, then your browser does not support WebGL - a technology used by this mapping tool. Try loading this page in a supported browser like Chrome or contact webteam@hrw.org Geolocated Videos Showing Spanish Speaking Military Contractors in El Fasher, SudanGraphics © 2026 Human Rights Watch.
One Colombian contractor said he trained RSF recruits at camps around Nyala—used by the RSF as its main base in South Darfur—around April 2025, and that many recruits were “young children.” The Colombian news outlet La Silla Vacía also reported that some contractors had trained RSF child soldiers.
International law prohibits the recruitment or use of children in armed conflict, which is a war crime when children are under 15. The UN secretary-general verified 16 cases of child recruitment by the RSF in 2024 and included the armed group in the UN “list of shame” for grave violations against children in conflict.
Global Security Services Group was founded in 2016 by Ahmed Mohammed al-Humairi, secretary general of the UAE’s presidential court, according to a 2025 report by The Sentry, an investigative nongovernmental organization. Al-Humairi reports to UAE Vice President Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the brother of President Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan and chairman of the presidential court. In 2017, al-Humairi transferred his shares in GSSG to Mohamed Hamdan al-Zaabi, a longtime business partner, The Sentry reported.
GSSG boasts of being “the first private security company in the United Arab Emirates to be awarded an armed security license.” Until recently, it also advertised having key Emirati ministries as its clients and of being “the only armed private security services provider for the UAE government.” A former employee said that senior members of the ruling family were likely among the company’s clients, a claim backed up by a cache of leaked emails examined by Human Rights Watch. Al-Zaabi continues to be in business with al-Humairi.
The UAE has steadfastly denied that it provides military support to the RSF, claiming that the assistance provided is humanitarian. However, Emirati state authorities should and would be fully aware of activities taking place on Emirati territory, and specifically on government property and military bases. The UAE is a highly centralized authoritarian state.
Under UAE law, private security companies are required to coordinate their activities with UAE authorities and ensure that their activities are not in conflict with other security measures.
Human Rights Watch wrote to GSSG, the UAE authorities, and others implicated in the apparent recruitment and deployment of private military contractors or other military support to the RSF with summaries of its findings but did not receive a response.
The UN Security Council should ask its Panel of Experts on the Sudan to investigate GSSG, including al-Zaabi, for their apparent role supporting the RSF in violation of the 2004 UN Security Council arms embargo on Darfur. The council should also ask the Panel to investigate other actors, including private companies that might be aiding the RSF, and impose sanctions on individuals and entities providing such support.
Governments, as well as the European Union and African Union, should also investigate GSSG and al-Zaabi, with a view to adopting targeted sanctions. States should suspend all military cooperation with, and arms sales to the UAE. The EU and other states should use the leverage provided by bilateral negotiations with the UAE to press its authorities to end support for the RSF.
“Civilian victims are paying the cost of the lack of will to call out UAE’s support to the RSF,” Segun said. “Other countries need to stop accepting the UAE’s blanket denials of support to the RSF which fly in the face of the facts, and should put an end to its impunity for war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
Chad: 10 Years On, Habré Conviction Inspires Global Justice
(Nairobi) – The 2016 conviction in Senegal of former Chadian dictator Hissène Habré was a pivotal moment in the pursuit of justice for atrocity crimes, Human Rights Watch and the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) said today. The verdict, which followed a 25-year legal campaign by Habré’s victims, was the first time the domestic courts of one country tried and convicted the former leader of another for serious international crimes under the principle of universal jurisdiction.
On May 30, 2016, the Extraordinary African Chambers (EAC), an African Union-backed court within the Senegalese judicial system, sentenced Habré to life in prison for crimes against humanity, war crimes, and torture including sexual slavery and rape. Habré ruled Chad from 1982 to 1990 with US and French backing. His government was responsible for widespread political killings, systematic torture, and thousands of arbitrary arrests. Habré died in August 2021, after eight years in custody.
“Habré’s victims pursued him for 25 years and brought him to justice when nearly everyone said it was impossible,” said Reed Brody, ICJ commissioner, who worked with Habré’s victims on behalf of Human Rights Watch. “Their message to today’s dictators is: justice can catch up with you. And to victims everywhere: don’t give up.”
The case has shaped international justice in several enduring ways, ICJ and Human Rights Watch said.
The EAC model of a “regionalized” hybrid court for prosecuting international crimes inspired the adoption in December 2024 of the statute for a Gambia-Economic Community of West African States hybrid tribunal to try crimes committed under former Gambian president Yahya Jammeh.
The Extraordinary African Chambers were created following the International Court of Justice 2012 ruling in Belgium v. Senegal, which held that Senegal was obligated under the United Nations Convention against Torture to either prosecute Habré or extradite him. The ruling also held that Senegal owed these obligations to all states parties of the treaty—erga omnes partes—allowing any country that had ratified the treaty, including Belgium, to bring International Court of Justice proceedings for noncompliance. That legal pathway later informed Canada and The Netherlands’ case against Syria over alleged torture, and the Gambia v. Myanmar and South Africa v. Israel cases under the Genocide Convention.
“The Habré case delivered a trial of a former head of state in a regional court with an African Union mandate, and with survivors at the center,” said Liz Evenson, international justice director at Human Rights Watch. “The campaign for justice for Habré’s crimes continues to inspire accountability efforts in Africa and around the globe.”
The judgment also advanced jurisprudence on torture and sexual violence, including rape and sexual slavery, such as findings that sexual slavery forms part of the customary international law prohibition on slavery as a war crime and enslavement as a crime against humanity. Chadian rape survivors broke their 25-year silence to testify in the case.
The 2016 conviction was upheld by the EAC Appeals Chamber in April 2017, which awarded approximately €123 million in reparations to nearly 7,400 named victims and survivors. In 2024, the Chadian government distributed approximately €15 million to survivors and families—roughly €1400 for each victim—a long-awaited but only partial step that was plagued by irregularities. The African Union trust fund, established to raise and disburse reparations under the EAC order, has yet to begin operations.
In Chad, a parallel 2015 conviction of 20 senior agents from Habré’s political police included a reparations award, and an order to build a memorial and convert the police headquarters into a museum, none of which has been carried out. The Chadian government has moved to “rehabilitate” the memory of Habré, the ICJ and Human Rights Watch said. The government expelled Brody from Chad in 2024 when he returned to participate in a conference about the case’s legacy.
The two groups said the anniversary should prompt the African Union, Senegal, Chad, and donor states to fully implement the reparations awards, address the irregularities documented in the 2024 Chadian distribution, operationalize the African Union trust fund, and carry out the symbolic measures ordered by the Chadian court.
“Ten years later, the survivors who made this trial happen are still waiting for the full reparations which courts granted them, and for the government to recognize their suffering,” said Jacqueline Moudeina, the victims’ Chadian lawyer. “The legacy of this case will be measured not only by what the judges wrote 10 years ago, but by what the Chadian government does now.”
Russia Plans ‘Civic Death Law’ for Exiled Critics
On May 26, Russia’s State Duma is scheduled to review a draft law that targets exiled critics for allegedly acting “against Russia’s interests overseas.”
The draft law, prepared by a special parliamentary commission, “On Investigation of Foreign Interference in Russia's Internal Affairs,” stipulates that Russian exiles convicted of offences typically the result of politically motivated prosecutions, will be subject to a wide range of restrictions.
The offences include “discrediting the armed forces,” failing to fulfill the requirements of the country’s “foreign agent” legislation, engaging with banned “undesirable” organizations, calling for sanctions against Russia, undermining Russia’s territorial integrity (which implies, among other things, references to Russian occupation of Ukrainian territories), and disseminating information deemed to exhibit “disrespect” for the Russian state, government agency, state symbols, or Russian society.
Similar to the long-standing ban by neighboring Belarus on issuing its nationals passports and other essential documents at Belarusian consulates overseas, the new Russian draft law also includes a prohibition on providing consular support, such as renewal of passports and notary services to convicted Russian exiles. They won’t be able to access Russian governmental digital services, including requesting official documents or executing any actions or contracts through a power of attorney. Their bank accounts, assets, and property in Russia will be frozen, and online banking will be disabled. Independent media and experts aptly described this proposed legislation as “the law on [exiles’] civic death.”
When asked about the draft law, the chairperson of the foreign interference commission, Vasily Piskaryov, lamented that Western countries refuse extradition requests and shelter people engaged in “anti-Russian campaigning,” thereby compelling Russian authorities to make the life of “traitors” abroad “not better than in prison.”
The punitive intention behind this Kremlin-sponsored draft law is evident. Once enacted, it will take the government’s retaliation campaign against exiled critics to a new level. Rights-respecting governments should ensure exiled Russians living in their territory are able to exercise basic human rights. If necessary, they should provide effective alternatives to documentation, allowing exiles to work, travel, and access essential services.
Türkiye: Court Removes Leadership of Main Opposition Party
(Istanbul) – A court decision ordering the removal of the party chair and leadership of Türkiye’s main opposition party, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), is the latest deeply damaging blow to the rule of law, democracy and human rights in Türkiye, Human Rights Watch said today.
On May 21, 2026, the 36th Ankara regional court of appeal issued an interim measure to remove the CHP chair, Özgür Özel, and the entire party leadership and annul the November 4-5, 2023, party congress at which party delegates elected them. The court restored the previous party leadership of Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, who lost the May 2023 presidential election to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and had been replaced by Özel at the party congress.
“The court’s decision to remove Özgür Özel and the entire CHP leadership is part of the Erdoğan government’s broader political efforts to sideline the main political opposition in ways that profoundly undermine civil and political rights and Türkiye’s democratic process,” said Benjamin Ward, deputy Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “After the government jailed the Istanbul mayor and CHP presidential candidate Ekrem İmamoğlu, and other CHP mayors and officials on bogus charges, it is clear that the Turkish authorities want to remove the current leadership of the CHP as a viable force in politics.”
The court decision to annul the party congress is a highly unusual interference in a political party’s internal party election and chosen leadership. Illegitimate efforts to interfere with the functioning of a political party or to effect its closure or the ability of elected leaders to operate as political candidates, constitute at a minimum a violation of the rights to freedom of association (article 11) and to free and fair elections (article 3, protocol 1) under the European Convention on Human Rights. Türkiye has a poor record of unlawful closure of and interference with political parties and the ongoing abusive tactics by the Erdoğan government to remove the CHP as a political force give rise to violations that go to the heart of a democratic society based on human rights and rule of law.
A review of the timeline of the leadership case demonstrates a clear political motivation on the part of Türkiye’s president in securing Özel’s removal, Human Rights Watch said. In the March 2024 local elections, under his leadership, the CHP received 37.8 percent of the vote nationally, surpassing the 35.5 percent for President Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP), which lost its lead for the first time in 22 years.
In October 2024, President Erdoğan made the first of several speeches suggesting that Özel had been elected party leader at the 2023 CHP congress in a dubious manner. In February 2025, the Ankara public prosecutor’s office announced an investigation into complaints about the 2023 congress. The complaints came from a few former and current CHP members opposed to Özel’s leadership who alleged, but provided no concrete evidence, that Özel and others had been elected through a fraudulent process entailing buying votes. The CHP leadership rejects the allegations.
In October 2025, after several hearings, the Ankara administrative court hearing the case dismissed it on the basis that Özel had also been elected leader in two further congresses in 2025. The decision prompted the complainants to appeal to the Ankara regional court, which, on May 21, upheld their complaint and nullified the 2023 congress, and also invalidated the subsequent congresses at which the Özel leadership was re-elected, without citing any evidence to justify its decision.
A separate ongoing criminal case in the Ankara 26th Criminal Court of First Instance is reviewing claims that İmamoğlu and 11 others paid delegates to vote for Özel at the congress. The indictment is based on vague assertions without demonstrable evidence of criminal wrongdoing.
Following the court’s decision, Özel and the party leadership convened at the Ankara party headquarters, and in a news conference and an address to supporters gathered outside the party building, Özel stated that he would not leave the party building and accused the courts of staging a coup against the opposition.
Justice Minister Akın Gürlek described the court’s decision as “consolidating our citizens’ trust in democracy.” Gürlek was the Istanbul chief public prosecutor in October 2024 when investigations against the CHP started there. On February 10, 2026, after the completion of the investigations into İmamoğlu, Gürlek was appointed justice minister.
On May 22, in his role as court-appointed party leader, Kılıçdaroğlu’s first action was to fire the three CHP lawyers responsible for lodging the party’s appeal to the Court of Cassation against the removal of the Özgür Özel leadership and to appoint new ones who immediately applied to withdraw that appeal.
Mental Health Is Another Unfortunate ICE Casualty
Against the backdrop of Mental Health Awareness Month and the advancement of Congress’ budget reconciliation bill, hundreds of immigrants, community members, and allies gathered in the nation’s capital on May 20 for a peaceful march from Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) headquarters to the Capitol.
The demonstration was held to protest the budget reconciliation bill’s funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), ICE’s parent agency. ICE has terrorized communities and harmed the mental health of many. The bill’s proposed additional $71 billion in funding would come with none of the lifesaving oversight and reforms that Human Rights Watch and others have repeatedly called for.
Abusive immigration detention is profoundly harmful to mental health; under the current administration, well-documented cases of medical neglect and inhumane treatment at detention centers and the gutting of oversight bodies has only made things worse. According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, the mortality rate in ICE detention in 2026 is on track to be the highest in 20 years—18 people have already died this year in detention, and 5 of those deaths have been categorized as apparent suicides.
Outside of detention, DHS subjects people across the country to extreme mental anguish. Healthcare workers in immigrant communities have described a notable rise in anxiety, depression, and suicidal thoughts among patients. Children in some communities are afraid to leave their homes, and if they do leave, some fear returning home to find that a parent has been taken from them. Some people of color, including US citizens, and their family members live in fear that they or a loved one will be subject to DHS’s violent immigration enforcement practices.
Meanwhile, the One Big, Beautiful Bill Act, passed in July 2025, will cut over a trillion dollars from rights-essential public programs, including Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) over the coming years, putting millions of at risk of losing access to health care and of experiencing food insecurity.
In reviewing the budget reconciliation bill, Congress should prioritize meaningful oversight of enforcement operations and detention facilities, as well as accountability measures for human rights violations, to prevent additional deaths and harm to mental health.
DR Congo: Renewed Repression, Impunity Top Rights Concerns
(Kinshasa) – The Human Rights Watch executive director, Philippe Bolopion, urged senior Congolese officials to respect freedom of expression, end arbitrary arrests and detentions, and ensure accountability for abuses during his visit to the Democratic Republic of Congo from May 17 to 21, 2026, Human Rights Watch said today.
The visit took place against a backdrop of the Rwandan-backed M23 armed group’s occupation in eastern Congo; a crackdown against journalists, activists, and political opposition members; and the renewed use of secret detention sites in the capital, Kinshasa.
“The current crackdown in Congo is eerily reminiscent of the Joseph Kabila era, with many Congolese activists and political opponents living in fear of retaliation by the authorities for merely expressing their opinion,” Bolopion said. “Human Rights Watch is concerned that restrictions on free expression and criticism of officials could usher in a broader repression.”
While in Kinshasa, Bolopion met with senior government officials, including Prime Minister Judith Suminwa Tuluka, and the ministers of defense, communication and media, and justice. He also met with victims of human rights abuses and their relatives, civil society and religious leaders, rights activists, members of the Banyamulenge community (a Congolese Tutsi minority from eastern Congo), opposition political party members, and foreign diplomats. Bolopion held a news conference in Kinshasa on May 21.
Human Rights Watch documented several cases in which the National Cyber Defense Council (Conseil national de cyberdéfense, or CNC), an agency attached to the presidency, arbitrarily arrested and forcibly disappeared dissidents, holding them in secret locations without formal charges or access to lawyers.
“I see my husband once a week, but I don’t know where he is,” said a woman whose husband had been abducted from their home one night. “I am blindfolded and don’t know where they take me.”
“Reports from Kinshasa of a sprawling network of secret detention sites, outside any judicial process, sends a chilling message to Congolese civil society,” Bolopion said. “It’s a practice that President Félix Tshisekedi had pledged to end when he took office.”
Government officials told Bolopion that some of those arrested were detained in villas, and that officials were still finalizing the investigation against them before transferring them into the justice system. They also indicated that reforms concerning the CNC were underway and that in the future, no arrests would be made without the presence of judicial police, who act under prosecutorial authority to investigate crimes.
“The serious security challenges facing Congo can’t justify an assault on the rule of law and basic human rights,” Bolopion said. “The authorities need to transfer those arbitrarily detained to the justice system, inform detainees’ families of their whereabouts, and abide by due process standards.”
Political opposition members and civil society activists expressed concern about a possible constitutional amendment to extend the president’s mandate beyond the two-term limit. This issue had previously arisen when then-President Joseph Kabila stayed in office past the constitutional limit.
In meetings with officials, Bolopion raised concerns about grave abuses committed by the parties to the conflict in eastern Congo, including the Congolese army, the allied Wazalendo militia, and pro-government armed groups, as well as the Rwandan army and the M23. He reiterated the importance of respecting international humanitarian law, including when carrying out airstrikes, and providing for the protection and free movement of civilians, and called for renewed international efforts to ensure accountability for crimes committed by all parties.
“For decades, civilians in eastern Congo have borne the brunt of abuses by government forces and armed groups,” Bolopion said. “Despite some important progress made by Congolese courts, judicial authorities have largely failed to prosecute senior commanders responsible for atrocities.”
Bolopion encouraged government officials to prioritize accountability for current and past international crimes, including by creating specialized mixed chambers with some international members, or a similar internationalized mechanism within the Congolese justice system. Congolese officials should also continue to support domestic prosecutions and International Criminal Court investigations.
In April, Human Rights Watch requested a meeting with President Paul Kagame of Rwanda to discuss abuses by the Rwandan military and M23 in eastern Congo, but received no response.
“Impunity breeds more abuses,” Bolopion said. “Donor governments including the European Union should support Congo’s efforts for accountability and sanction senior Congolese and Rwandan officials responsible for supporting abusive armed groups.”
Milestone UN Reports Advocate Moving Beyond GDP
There is growing recognition that current economic metrics fail to capture much of what really matters. Gross domestic product (GDP), which measures total economic activity and is a cornerstone of economic decision-making, is blind to issues such as whether children have quality public schools, people have access to health care, or government institutions are accountable to the public they serve. When economic decision-making is narrowly focused on GDP growth, it leaves human rights behind.
But two recent United Nations reports suggest a paradigm shift could be coming. The milestone reports offer concrete recommendations for moving beyond an overemphasis on GDP that could make a major difference for human rights.
A report released this month by a UN Secretary General-appointed expert group proposes alternative indicators for measuring economic progress. The dashboard of 31 indicators includes many directly related to human rights, in line with what Human Rights Watch has long advocated, such as key health and education outcomes and the prevalence of discrimination and intimate partner violence. It also includes measures of poverty, inequality, labor rights, environmental sustainability, and public trust.
While it is up to governments and international institutions now to adopt and integrate these indicators, they offer a chance to meaningfully shift economic incentives. The report also recommends development of a headline indicator that aggregates multiple dimensions. GDP weighs heavily on everything from credit ratings to borrowing costs, even though it is an unreliable predictor of economic vulnerability and resilience. An indicator that gives weight to human rights, inequality, and environmental sustainability could improve the quality of economic data while incentivizing governments to make decisions that lead to more equitable economies.
Another report, a “roadmap” for moving beyond an approach that depends on growth in order to improve respect for economic, social, and cultural rights, was launched on April 21 and comes from the UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Olivier de Schutter. It lists evidence-based policies that the paper argues could better fulfill rights, including adequate funding for public services and universal social security and upholding labor rights, as well the adoption of indicators beyond GDP.
These reports do more than build momentum. They show the UN can meet the moment and use its position to try and shift something as globally entrenched as GDP fixation. It is now up to governments to follow suit.
Maldives: Attacks on Media Escalate
(Bangkok) – Two journalists were arrested in the Maldives in the second week of May, 2026, the first journalists jailed on criminal charges since the country adopted a democratic constitution in 2008, Human Rights Watch said today.
The Maldives authorities should immediately release the arbitrarily imprisoned journalists, Leevan Ali Naseer, 29, and Mohamed Shahzan, 31, and drop charges against media officials caught up in an escalating crackdown on press freedom in the country.
“The Maldives government’s wrongful jailing of two journalists and raiding of independent news outlets sends a chilling message about media freedom in the country,” said Elaine Pearson, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The government should urgently reverse the dangerous backsliding on media freedom.”
On April 27, the Serious and Organized Crime Department raided the office of the online newspaper Adhadhu in Malé, the capital, seizing journalists’ laptops and hard drives. On March 28, the news outlet had released the documentary “Aisha,” which alleges sexual misconduct and abuse of power by President Mohamed Muizzu against a former employee. Muizzu has denied the allegations.
The authorities subsequently imposed travel bans on Adhadhu’s CEO, Hussain Fiyaz Moosa, and managing editor, Hassan Mohamed. On May 10, the Prosecutor General’s Office charged the two under section 612(a) of the penal code for “qazf,” the false accusation of adultery under Islamic law, which carries a prison sentence of up to 19 months and up to 80 lashes.
On May 10, the Maldivian Criminal Court issued a gag order prohibiting public discussion of the documentary. Two days later, it convicted and sentenced Adhadhu journalists Naseer and Shahzan to 10 and 15 days in prison, respectively, for reporting on the gag order. The men were also ordered to pay fines of approximately Maldivian rufiyaa (MVR) 26,000 (US $1,700).
The media reported that both journalists were being held in poor and unsanitary conditions at Maafushi prison. On May 15, prison officials transferred Naseer to a separate unit, placed him in solitary confinement, and denied him access to medical treatment for a skin condition that had worsened in custody.
On May 17, the High Court rejected an appeal filed by the Maldives Journalists Association against the gag order, finding that the group did not qualify to appeal this case. The High Court subsequently accepted an appeal brought by Moosa on May 19 but has not yet ruled on it.
Following the arrests of Naseer and Shahzan, journalists and opposition party supporters staged public protests in Malé. Police obstructed and attacked the demonstrators, and on May 13 arrested 10 people at a protest organized by the People’s National Front and the Maldives Democratic Party; several remain detained. On May 19, 13 media outlets observed a 12-hour media blackout, suspending their daily reporting in protest against escalating attacks on the media.
The Maldives Journalists Association’s executive director, Mohamed Junayd, told Human Rights Watch that “in a criminal justice system that is struggling with a backlog of cases, the haste with which the executive, prosecutors, and judiciary have done their work in order to jail journalists, in secret trials without lawyers, is shocking. The seizure of protected journalistic material, travel bans, the sweeping gag order, and the jailing of journalists represents a calculated dismantling of the legal safeguards designed to protect journalists.”
Human Rights Watch and other human rights groups wrote to President Muizzu on May 8 to express serious concerns about the targeting of Adhadhu and other media outlets and journalists, and said that the government should publicly reaffirm its commitment to freedom of expression and independence of the media.
The media crackdown followed the Maldives’ parliament, the People’s Majlis, passing a law on September 16, 2025, the Maldives Media and Broadcasting Regulation Bill, that provides the government broad and discretionary powers to control and regulate the media. Adhadhu’s Mohamed said that under the law, “the government effectively has full control over the regulatory body, since members are elected through parliament, which the government controls. The law isn’t meant to promote media rights; it’s meant to suppress them.”
The law established a regulatory body, the Maldives Media and Broadcast Commission, that is empowered to order media outlets to issue correction notices on online content and to impose fines from MVR 5,000 ($325) to MVR 25,000 ($1,600) on journalists and media workers who fail to comply. In late April, the commission ordered Channel 13 television to halt its live transmission of opposition protests.
On May 19, three former Maldivian presidents, Mohamed Nasheed, Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom, and Ibrahim Solih, sent a joint letter to diplomatic missions and civil society groups covering the Maldives, including Human Rights Watch, saying that the current administration should release the journalists and those detained during protests.
The former presidents wrote that “a free press is among the clearest markers of the democracy… and its suppression follows a broader pattern of backsliding: the disempowerment of Parliament, the undermining of independent commissions, and the passage of a media act that empowers a government-aligned commission to discipline and shut down outlets.”
Islamist extremist gangs in the Maldives have long targeted activists and journalists for material deemed “offensive” to Islam. Some of these gangs have links to prominent politicians and have assaulted and murdered journalists with impunity.
“The Maldives is a very small country… so, when journalists are targeted, it’s very easy for people to identify and confront us,” Mohamed said. “When officials label us as anti-Islamic or aggressive, it puts us at real risk. ...The threat is very real, and it affects how we live our daily lives – going to work, taking our children to school, etc.”
“The renewed crackdown on the press in the Maldives shows that the gains in media freedom are very fragile,” Pearson said. “President Muizzu needs to send a strong public message to the police that free expression must be protected and that attacks on the media by anyone won’t be tolerated.”
Liberia: School Fees Block Children’s Access to Education
(Monrovia) – Registration fees and other costs to attend public schools in Liberia are a major barrier to education, forcing many children to delay enrollment, miss school, or drop out altogether, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.
The 75-page report, “‘Without Education, There Will Be Nothing’: School Fees and Other Barriers to Education in Liberia,” documents that mandatory fees—despite a legal guarantee of free and compulsory education for grades 1 to 9—place a heavy financial burden on families and violate children’s right to education. Children in Liberia often enroll in school years late and are sent home when their parents are unable to pay their fees, or work to help pay them. Many drop out entirely or never attend school.
May 20, 2026 “Without Education, There Will Be Nothing”“The Liberian government has made important commitments to free and compulsory education, but school fees continue to keep children out of the classroom,” said Jo Becker, children’s rights advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. “Removing these fees would be a crucial step to expand access to education and improve children’s futures.”
Between November 2025 and January 2026, Human Rights Watch visited 21 schools and interviewed 118 parents, teachers, and school administrators across Montserrado, Margibi, Nimba, Bong, and Grand Bassa counties. Liberian child advocates also conducted peer-to-peer interviews with 61 children and youth.
A 14-year-old boy told Human Rights Watch that he left school to help his mother sell goods in the market: “Right now, I’m not in school because my parents can’t afford to send me. I really want to go back.”
Liberia has one of the highest out-of-school rates in the world. Roughly one-third of all school-age children, ages 3 to 17, and half of rural children have never attended school. Only 38 percent of children complete grade 6, and just 17 percent complete grade 9. These figures place Liberia among the worst-performing education systems globally and underscore the scale of exclusion children face. On average, a child who enters school at age 4 will complete just 4.2 years of schooling by age 18.
Despite laws requiring free education from grades 1 to 9, children at all levels—from early childhood education through senior secondary—are required to pay registration fees and other costs to attend public schools.
For many children, mandatory fees are not an abstract policy failure, but result in daily exclusion from education. Parents and children said that fees delay school entry and disrupt attendance. At the early childhood level, intended for children ages 3 to 5, 43 percent of children are at least 3 years over age. By secondary school, more than 60 percent of students are 4 or more years older than the official age for their grade. Students who begin school late are more likely to repeat grades, drop out, and fail to complete their education.
The burden of fees is particularly severe in a country where nearly half the population lives in poverty. In this context, fees shift the cost of education onto families, contrary to Liberia’s obligations under international and regional human rights law, including the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child. Parents reported taking on debt, going without food, and making extreme sacrifices to keep their children in school.
Human Rights Watch also highlighted the broader challenges to education quality, including overcrowded classrooms, inadequate infrastructure, low teacher salaries, and heavy reliance on volunteer teachers. In some schools, classes of 80 to 100 students are common, and volunteers—many unpaid for years hoping to get a paid position—make up a large share of the teaching workforce.
Liberia’s education system continues to face the long-term effects of civil wars, the Ebola epidemic, and the Covid-19 pandemic. Public investment in education remains low. The 2026 education budget accounting for about 11 percent of national spending and 2.73 percent of GDP, is significantly below the average of 4 percent for members of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the international benchmark of 4-6 percent of GDP.
The government has taken steps to improve access and quality, Human Rights Watch said. The Excellence in Learning in Liberia (EXCEL) project, a US$88.7 million initiative financed by a US$60 million World Bank loan and a US$28.7 million grant from the Global Partnership for Education, with additional government support, aims to expand access to quality education and includes US$18.5 million for school grants aimed at reducing or eliminating fees.
If fully implemented, these grants could significantly reduce financial barriers and help ensure that children enroll on time and remain in school. Human Rights Watch estimates that replacing registration fees with school grants for public schools—from early childhood through senior secondary education—would increase the education budget by roughly 4 percent, making the reform feasible.
The government should immediately eliminate registration fees at public primary and junior secondary schools and do so as quickly as possible for early childhood and senior secondary education, Human Rights Watch said. The government should also expand and sustain school grants, increase education funding in line with international benchmarks, and prioritize spending on early childhood through secondary education.
The government should also continue efforts to ensure sufficient paid and trained teaching staff, construct and rehabilitate schools and classrooms, and provide necessary materials and equipment, including restroom facilities, with priority to areas that are underserved.
Expanding access to free, quality public education would reduce poverty and inequality, strengthen Liberia’s human capital, and broaden opportunities for millions of children, Human Rights Watch said.
“Liberia has a clear opportunity to build on existing reforms and remove the financial barriers that keep so many children out of school,” Becker said. “Ensuring free, quality public education is one of the most effective investments the country can make.”
South Africa: New Waves of Xenophobic Attacks
(Johannesburg) – Vigilantes in South Africa have carried out violent xenophobic attacks targeting African and Asian foreign nationals in recent weeks, with little or insufficient apparent response from the police and other authorities, Human Rights Watch said today.
In April and May 2026, a citizen-led movement, March and March, that advocates more stringent immigration enforcement in South Africa organized demonstrations against undocumented migrants in major cities including Pretoria, Johannesburg, and Durban, with violent and sometimes fatal results.
“South Africa’s constitution and international human rights law protects the right to protest, but that does not include permission to commit violence,” said Nomathamsanqa Masiko-Mpaka, South Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The authorities should not allow vigilante groups to violently target foreign nationals and instead need to protect them and bring those who harm them to justice.”
Since 2008—when 62 people, including 21 South Africans, 11 Mozambicans, 5 Zimbabweans and 3 Somalis, were killed—South Africa has been grappling with intermittent but widespread xenophobic harassment and violence against African and Asian foreign nationals living in the country, whether refugees, asylum seekers, or both documented and undocumented migrants.
Sporadic waves of violence erupted against foreign nationals in 2015, 2019—primarily targeting Nigerian nationals—and 2021-2022, with the rise of vigilante groups like Operation Dudula (“force out” in Zulu). Since 2024, the country’s deteriorating socioeconomic conditions, including an unemployment rate of over 43 percent, coincided with the rise of anti-immigrant activism and the formation of newer vigilante groups like March and March.
These groups scapegoat foreign nationals as the cause of South Africa’s economic woes, poor service delivery, and high rates of crime, despite studies that disprove these claims.
These groups have prevented foreign nationals from accessing health care and education in public facilities. In November 2025, the South Gauteng High Court granted an injunction against Operation Dudula, prohibiting its supporters from blocking migrants access to healthcare facilities.
Mpho Makhubela, a member of the Consortium for Refugees and Migrants in South Africa (CoRMSA) and an activist in the Kopanang Africa Against Xenophobia (KAAX) coalition, noted with concern the opportunistic nature of these groups.
“Vigilante groups feed off the country’s frustrations and socioeconomic rights regression, unemployment, [and] lack of efforts to address the equity gaps that we have as a country,” he said. “The reality is that the country has been faced with the enormous task of addressing the legacies of apartheid.”
A 43-year-old Cameroonian shop owner in Durban, who has lived in South Africa for nearly 20 years, said that people he believed to be affiliated with March and March attacked him on April 17, 2026, during protests in Durban targeting foreign-owned shops.
He closed his shop, locked the doors, and turned off the lights, but a group of approximately ten men broke down his door and, using a derogatory term, asked two South African women who run a hair salon in the shop about him. “They whipped me and my three colleagues who are not South African with golf sticks and sjamboks [heavy whips], and sprayed pepper spray on us,” he said. “They also used stun guns on us. We ran outside the shop, while unable to see clearly. They followed us outside and whipped us … no one came to assist us.”
The shop owner is married to a South African woman and lawfully living in South Africa, but he said his attackers did not seek to clarify his migration status. No law enforcement officers came to protect him, he said, similar to reports in previous years that South African police officers failed to protect foreign nationals, or worse, aided the attackers. The shop owner has not opened an assault case, as he does not have faith in the country’s criminal justice system.
Human Rights Watch has not verified reported cases of foreign nationals who died at the hands of vigilante groups during the demonstrations. However, a credible source described an episode days before the most recent protests in which police beat, tortured, and then placed a Malawian national in the trunk of a car after he did not produce proper documentation. The man died from his injuries.
On April 27, United Nations Secretary General António Guterres expressed concerns over the reported xenophobic harassment, discrimination, and attacks in South Africa. The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights expressed similar concerns, calling on the government to investigate violence against foreign nationals and to ensure those responsible are held accountable and that affected migrants have access to justice and protection.
South Africa’s Constitution guarantees human rights, dignity, and equality to all within its borders, not only citizens. South Africa is party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, both of which impose obligations for states to protect everyone in their jurisdiction against attacks motivated by discrimination, including on grounds of ethnicity, social origin, or birth.
South Africa is also party to the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination; attacks on foreign nationals have been a matter of concern for the committee that monitors state compliance with the convention for over a decade.
In December 2023, the committee called on South Africa to “take measures to effectively combat organized vigilante groups”; “provide victims of discriminatory acts with adequate redress and support”; “ensure their protection, as well as the protection of their property”; and “adopt measures to ensure accountability and end impunity, including by conducting effective, thorough and impartial investigations into all reports of abuse and violations of human rights perpetrated against non-citizens, and prosecute and punish those convicted adequately with penalties commensurate with the offences.”
“South African authorities should intensify efforts to address anti-immigrant sentiments and violence to ensure the safety and protection of at-risk foreign nationals in the country,” Masiko-Mpaka said. “Vigilante groups need to be held fully accountable, including through effective criminal prosecutions.”
Detainee’s Death in Armenia Raises Serious Questions
The death of Armen Hovhannisyan by suicide on May 16, hours after Armenian police transferred him to a psychiatric institution, should prompt urgent scrutiny of how authorities respond to people in psychosocial distress.
Police in Artashat, about 30 kilometers from Yerevan, detained Hovhannisyan after he allegedly tore down an election campaign poster. Authorities opened criminal proceedings for “obstructing or coercing participation in campaign activities.” According to official information, while Hovhannisyan was in a police detention facility on May 16, officers observed what they described as “mentally unbalanced behavior” and called an ambulance. He was subsequently transferred to a psychiatric institution in Yerevan, where authorities said he died by suicide later that day.
But the official account leaves critical questions unanswered. Authorities have not said why police considered detention was necessary, how long Hovhannisyan was in custody for, what conditions he was held in or if he had seen a doctor or a lawyer, what supports and safeguards were put in place to protect his rights, or the basis for transferring him to a psychiatric institution.
These gaps matter. Contact with the criminal justice system should not culminate in loss of life or involve punitive, coercive, or unsupportive mental health responses.
Authorities said they opened a criminal investigation into Hovhannisyan’s death. As part of it, they should determine if Hovhannisyan’s detention, treatment in custody, and any psychiatric intervention complied with international standards, including the prohibitions on arbitrary detention, deprivation of liberty on the basis of disability, and the requirement that treatment be based on free and informed consent.
The case also points to a broader problem. Armenia has long relied on institutional and punitive responses to people with psychosocial disabilities, while community-based mental health support, crisis-response services, and accessible legal assistance remain inadequate.
Armenia is a party to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which requires authorities to respect legal capacity, provide reasonable accommodation, and ensure nondiscrimination for people with disabilities at all stages of criminal justice proceedings.
This points to the need for an investigation broader than a criminal one, one capable of addressing structural failures, including gaps in training, oversight, and accountability in law enforcement responses to people with psychosocial disabilities, as well as a lack of accessible, rights-based support outside of institutions. An effective investigation should identify not only what happened in this case but what needs to change to prevent similar deaths.
Gaza: Israel Curbs Aid, Kills Civilians During Ceasefire
(Beirut) – The humanitarian infrastructure sustaining life in Gaza remains in peril over six months after the ceasefire agreement in October 2025, Human Rights Watch said today. As the Board of Peace prepares to brief the United Nations Security Council on May 21 on its newly-issued six-month progress report, Israeli authorities are undermining humanitarian lifelines. Continuing Israeli attacks have killed at least 856 Palestinians and wounded 2,463 others, according to Gaza Health Ministry.
The Board of Peace, authorized under UN Security Council Resolution 2803, is tasked with assessing parties’ compliance with the Comprehensive Plan to End the Gaza Conflict. Rapidly expanding and safeguarding aid is central to the plan, alongside restoring essential civilian infrastructure. But aid volumes remain far below required levels and critical humanitarian access routes have been repeatedly obstructed, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, (OCHA).
“The plan was supposed to bring relief. Instead, Palestinians in Gaza are still hungry, still cannot reach medical care, and civilians are still being killed,” said Adam Coogle, Middle East deputy director at Human Rights Watch. “Whatever the Board of Peace tells the Security Council, that is what life looks like six months in.”
In its May 15 report, the Board of Peace said that aid distributed by UN agencies and partners increased by over 70 percent during the reporting period compared to pre-ceasefire levels, and that "basic food needs have been stabilized for the first time since 2023." The Board's headline figures leave out that aid volumes have fallen since early 2026, have not recovered to where they were before the US and Israel-Iran war began in late February, and have never reached the minimum the UN says is needed. Four UN agencies warned in December 2025 that famine, pushed back only weeks earlier through the ceasefire, could rapidly return without sustained access and supplies.
On February 28, 2026, at the start of Israeli-US military operations against Iran, Israeli authorities closed all crossings into Gaza. Trucks entering in the following weeks fell from a weekly average of 4,200 to just 590, based on US military coordination figures reported by Haaretz. The Kerem Shalom crossing partially reopened on March 3, following reported US pressure, and Kerem Shalom and Zikim remain the only operational entry points for humanitarian and commercial goods. In the first 11 days of May, only half of the aid trucks arriving from Egypt were allowed to unload at Israeli-controlled crossings.
Commercial trucks have started entering Gaza again in larger numbers, with 789 private trucks crossing between May 4 and 10, according to OCHA. But total deliveries remain below pre-February 28 levels and far short of what Gaza’s population needs.
According to OCHA’s May 1 situation report, aid groups reached around 197,000 families with food parcels in April, covering 75 percent of minimum daily calorie needs, an improvement from March, when rations covered only half of those needs. But the total number of meals served daily has dropped since late March, with some aid groups scaling back direct food distribution, OCHA said.
The World Food Programme reported that people in Gaza were eating less in the first half of April than in March, with most families eating vegetables, fruit, or protein only once a week or less. With cooking gas in short supply, 68 percent of people are now burning waste to cook their meals, up 13 percent from March.
As of February 5, none of Gaza’s 37 hospitals were fully operational, and only 19 were even partially functioning, according to OCHA. Over 43,000 people have suffered life-changing injuries, one in four of them children, and more than 50,000 need long-term rehabilitation care, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates. No rehabilitation facility is fully running. Israeli delays in approving specialized surgical equipment are limiting complex care, and at least 46 percent of essential medicines are out of stock, according to WHO. Israeli restrictions on bringing in generators, engine oil, and spare parts are causing breakdowns across health care, sanitation, debris removal, and humanitarian work, according to OCHA.
Rodents and insects are spreading across displacement camps, and skin infections and other diseases are on the rise, OCHA reported. UN agencies and aid groups working on water and sanitation warn that severe shortages of lubricant oil and spare parts are causing generators to fail. In Khan Younis, sewage pumping stations have stopped working and untreated waste is flooding residential streets. Across Gaza, more than 200 water and sanitation facilities have been running on backup generators for over two and a half years, most now on recycled oil.
On April 6, Al Jazeera reported that Israeli forces fired on a WHO vehicle in eastern Khan Younis, killing a contractor and wounding several others. WHO suspended medical evacuations via Rafah for six days in response. As of late April, OCHA had recorded the killing of at least 593 aid workers in Gaza since October 2023, including 8 since the ceasefire.
Airstrikes killed an aid worker at a water well in Gaza City on April 20 and a worker for the NGO Ard El Insan on April 26, both triggering the suspension of essential services. According to the Gaza Health Ministry, more than 1,400 patients have died waiting for medical evacuation since the Rafah crossing was seized in May 2024, and over 18,500 patients, including 4,000 children, still await evacuation.
The NGO Gisha has reported how Israeli authorities have categorically prevented access for Gaza patients in hospitals in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and in Israel, since October 2023, though they have at times facilitated limited access to treatment abroad, including through Israeli territory since July 2024.
Since the ceasefire, Israeli forces have moved the “Yellow Line,” the agreed limit of Israeli territorial control inside Gaza, westward beyond its agreed boundaries. They have established at least 32 outposts and constructing what appears to be a permanent or long-term ground barrier, according to satellite imagery analysis published by Haaretz. The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights documened at least 167 Palestinians killed near the line between October 11 and January 21, including 26 children and 17 women. The head of Doctors Without Borders in Gaza told Haaretz that as the line moves west, it is swallowing up water points and health facilities.
According to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), 127 of its facilities now fall behind the line or in areas requiring Israeli approval for access. Since March 2025, Israeli authorities have blocked the agency from taking humanitarian assistance directly into Gaza.
The Comprehensive Plan includes commitments by Israel that remain unfulfilled, including a scale-up of humanitarian assistance. Human Rights Watch has previously raised concerns about other elements of the plan, including the creation of a Board of Peace with no Palestinian representation.
At the Board of Peace’s inaugural meeting in February, ten Board member states and observers pledged a total of US$17 billion for reconstruction against UN estimates of $70 billion needed. As of April, the Board had received less than $1 billion of the pledged amount, with only three contributors having delivered funds, according to Reuters.
Israel, as the occupying power, is required under international humanitarian law to ensure the civilian population has access to food, water, medical care, and essential supplies, and to facilitate the rapid and unimpeded passage of humanitarian relief. Starving civilians as a method of warfare is a war crime under the Rome Statute, which established the International Criminal Court (ICC). Deliberately imposing conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of a population constitutes an act of genocide under the Genocide Convention.
Human Rights Watch documented in December 2023 that Israel was using starvation as a weapon of war in Gaza, and in December 2024 published a report in which it found that Israel’s deliberate deprivation of water amounted to the crime against humanity of extermination and acts of genocide.
Israeli authorities should immediately comply with their obligations under international humanitarian law, including ensuring the unobstructed passage of humanitarian aid at scale through all crossings, lifting unlawful restrictions on UNRWA and other international humanitarian organizations, and ensuring the safety of humanitarian personnel, Human Rights Watch said.
Governments should suspend arms transfers to the Israeli government, impose targeted sanctions on Israeli officials credibly implicated in serious abuses, suspend preferential trade agreements with Israel, and promote accountability by supporting the International Court of Justice and the ICC, including by enforcing the ICC’s arrest warrants.
“When the Board of Peace briefs the Security Council, members should weigh what they hear against what UN agencies are reporting from the ground,” Coogle said. “No spin can hide the fact that aid is not entering at the needed scale, patients do not have access to adequate medical care, and crossings to Gaza remain limited.”